CALIFORNIA WOMAN CHARGED WITH FAKING OWN ABDUCTION IN 2016

She said that her captors had leashed her to a pole inside a closet, a bucket of kitty litter serving as her toilet. Then came the beatings. And when she tried to escape, she told investigators, she was branded.

That is how Sherri Papini explained to investigators what happened during her disappearance in 2016, a three-week ordeal that prompted an intense and costly search across Northern California, where she had been living, and several other states.

The widely reported missing person case wound down after a truck driver spotted Papini wandering along an interstate, but the investigation was not over.

Federal prosecutors said this past week that Papini’s claims that two masked women had abducted her at gunpoint while she was on a run in Redding had been made up, and that she continued her deception when investigators confronted her.

In fact, prosecutors say, Papini, who is married with two children, was staying with an ex-boyfriend and had used prepaid cellphones to arrange for him to whisk her some 600 miles away to his home in Southern California.

Her bruises and burns were self-inflicted, said prosecutors, who announced that Papini, 39, had been arrested Thursday on felony charges that included making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and mail fraud. The fraud charges stem from more than $30,000 in therapy and ambulance services that prosecutors said the California Victim Compensation Board paid for.

Michael L. Johnson, the Shasta County sheriff, said in a statement Thursday that Papini had cost taxpayers more than $150,000 in resources used to investigate her claims and staged abduction.

“Not only did this charade take valuable resources away from real criminal investigative matters,” he wrote on Facebook, “but in a time where there is serious human trafficking cases with legitimate victims Sherri Papini used this tragic societal phenomenon to gain notoriety and financial gain.”

Prosecutors said Papini had said that her kidnappers were part of a human trafficking ring and had told her that she would be sold. “The buyer’s a cop. They’re never going to find you,” she said one of her captors told her, according to the criminal complaint.

In a statement released Thursday by a public relations firm, the Papini family criticized the nature of the federal investigation and the tactics investigators employed in questioning Papini and her husband, Keith. The statement did not address whether Papini had faked her abduction.

The statement added that the family was “confused” by several aspects of the charges and was seeking clarification.

Prosecutors said that Papini’s ex-boyfriend, who was not identified, had admitted to taking part in the fake kidnapping. DNA found on Papini’s clothing led investigators to him, according to the criminal complaint. It matched the DNA of one of the ex-boyfriend’s parents, which had been collected for ancestry research.

Investigators said that the ex-boyfriend told them that Papini had instructed him to brand her with a tool for making crafts.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the charges against Papini, who appeared in court Friday. She was ordered detained as a danger and flight risk, and her next court appearance is Tuesday. Her lawyer, Michael Borges, was not immediately available Friday night.

Papini faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 if convicted of making false statements to a federal investigator.

The second charge of mail fraud carries a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.